Improv: Void
by CritterKeeper
Summary: Darien and Claire try to escape as the Agency comes under attack from an unseen enemy (reviews, please!) Chapter 5 now available!
1. flight

Improv: "Void"  
By CritterKeeper  
  
  
The door to the Keep slid open, startling Claire. She wasn't expecting anyone.  
She looked up from her computer to see Darien charging in, staring frantically around the room, a frightened look on his face.  
  
His eyes were black holes. He'd quicksilvered them.  
  
"Claire?" he called, his voice tense.  
  
"Darien, what is it?" She stared, fascinated, at those empty black spaces, before tearing her eyes away to scan the room nervously. Of course, if Darien's eyes were quicksilvered, the threat must be invisible, so she wasn't sure what she was hoping to see.  
  
Darien rushed to her side, his posture protective yet frightened. "Keep, we've got to get out of here!" He put his arm around her shoulders and started hustling her to the door.  
  
"Darien, wait! What is it?" She quickly realized what threat would involve invisibility. "Is it Arnaud?"  
  
"How the *hell* did he get in?" Darien swore, more to himself than to her.  
  
"Wait, wait," she stopped, pulling away from him and heading for the refrigerator. "Let me grab some counteragent, you'll be needing it!"  
  
He caught her wrist as she moved away. "There's no time!"  
  
"There bloody well better be time," Claire retorted, pulling her wrist free, "or Arnaud might not be our only threat!"  
  
She grabbed a few of the precious vials, shoving them into the pocket of her lab coat, and snatched up her syringe and some clean needles from the bench on the way out the door. She stuffed them into her pocket too. The counteragent wouldn't keep long outside the refrigerator, but she was afraid it wouldn't be long before Darien needed it anyway.  
  
Darien hustled her to the elevator, glancing around the hallway frantically.  
"Shouldn't we call the Official, or Hobbes?" The elevator felt claustrophobic with an unseen threat hanging over her.  
  
"I called Hobbes' cell, got that stupid not-in-service message. And the fat man knows."  
  
As Claire opened her mouth, the elevator doors swished open, and her mouth was left hanging open in shock for a moment. The remains of one of the Agency guards was lying just to the side of the elevator. Another was barely visible behind the front desk, just the bloody stump where a head had been.  
  
"Aw, crap!" she exclaimed in a hushed voice.  
  
"C'mon, I've got to get you out of here!"  
  
They darted down a side hallway, to where a plain unlabeled door opened into the passage to their emergency exit. Darien kept a hand on her wrist or an arm around her shoulder, as if afraid that if he let go, he would lose her forever. Or perhaps as if he could shield her from danger with the contact. Claire was deeply touched, even as it drove home just how frightened Darien was.  
  
When they reached the outside door, Claire heard the sound of an alarm from deeper inside the Agency. "A little late, guys!" Darien called out softly to the unseen klaxon. "Hang on, Claire, we're going to head for the van!"  
  
With that, Claire felt the cool touch of quicksilver sliding over her from where Darien's arm crossed her shoulder. It crept down and up and around, enveloping her in seconds. The worst part was feeling it approaching her eyes, and the feeling of that aching cold coming in contact with her eyeballs. A thousand times harder to handle than contact lenses. She closed her eyes at the critical moment, braced herself, and finally opened them, trying to pretend it was cold water she was diving into.  
  
It helped distract her when she began to see in that spooky quicksilver vision.  
Darien was sort of in black and white, his eyes an eerie purplish glow, but none of the colors translated exactly. As she watched, the purple glow spread across the rest of his form. She wondered, again, why she couldn't see herself when quicksilvered. It still made her skin crawl, beneath its coating, to look down and see nothing of her own body.  
  
"Okay, let's go!" Darien urged her in a hushed voice, shoving the door open and pushing her out. Now, his arm around her served a purpose, maintaining the contact that would enable him to keep her quicksilvered as long as possible and send the stuff flaking away at a moment's notice when necessary.  
  
They moved as quickly and silently as possible. Claire couldn't even hear Darien's footsteps, although her own seemed to echo endlessly in the alley they had emerged into. A glowing purple hand pointed left, pressure on her shoulders urging her in that direction. She nodded, knowing Darien would be able to see her even if he couldn't see himself.  
  
She could just barely hear the alarm through the brick wall beside them. Voices shouting carried down from an open window somewhere.  
  
The van was parked at the curb out front. They hurried into the street and around to the side of the van away from the building.  
  
Just as they reached it, an explosion shook the ground and sent bits of brick and plaster showering down around them. The van provided just enough protection. A fire alarm's wail joined the earlier klaxon.  
  
Darien eased the side door open, hidden from view of the building by the rest of the van. Suddenly he yanked the door open the rest of the way and dove in. Claire could hear the sounds of a struggle, of flesh and bone colliding. A crunch of something plastic breaking.  
  
She started to follow, but was brought up short by the sensation of her quicksilver cocoon flaking away from her. She pressed against the side of the van, trying to stay as invisible as possible from as many angles as possible.  
  
Silence from the van, and then a hand, freezing through the cloth of her sleeve, pulled her inside. She cried out in spite of herself, wondering briefly which Invisible Man it was that had hold of her.  
  
"It's me," Darien reassured her in a whisper. "Stay in the back, out of sight. I'll drive."  
  
As the van started up, and pulled away from the curb, tires squealing, Claire could hear shouts and gunfire. A metallic thwack echoed through the van as bullets hit the back door and the side toward the Agency building. Claire struggled to pull the side door closed. When it finally latched with a click she couldn't hear over the engine's roar, she sank to the floor for a moment to catch her breath. She scooted around, back to the door to brace herself against sudden swerves, so she could survey the van's interior.  
  
Two motionless bodies were in a heap against the back door. They wore dark suits, the generic uniform of everyone from terrorists to FBI. The one on top was facing toward her, except for his head, which was hanging at an unnatural angle and facing backwards on his shoulders.  
  
She glanced toward the front of the van, where Darien had un-quicksilvered, his eyes intent on the road ahead.  
  
A pile of shattered plastic by her foot. The remains of thermal goggles.  
  
"Darien? Are you alright?"  
  
"Oh, I'm just peachy," Darien replied.  
  
The van pulled into somewhere dark. A tunnel, a garage, a parking tower....Claire couldn't see from where she was, only glimpse cement overhead through the windshield, and the change in light inside the van. After the glare of midday sun, her eyes couldn't adjust fast enough.  
  
They jerked to a stop. Darien turned off the engine.  
  
Claire steeled herself and reached out to the body. Turned the head around so she could see his face. She had to know.  
  
She recognized him. One of the Agency's footsoldiers.  
  
She tried to tell herself he might have been a traitor, might have been bought by Arnaud. But she knew it wasn't true.  
  
She yanked at the door to the van, tumbled out the back, hit the ground rolling and came up running.  
  
She could hear her own footsteps echoing. It was a parking garage, large and empty and with no sign visible of where the way out might be. She ducked behind a pillar and tried quiet her own ragged breathing enough to hear whether he pursued. She scanned the walls and ceiling for any signs or arrows. She could see clean spots where they'd been removed. He'd planned this ahead of time.  
  
She couldn't hear him. Was he following? Had he seen where she stopped? The hair on the backs of her arms rose as her senses strained. Was it fear? Or a sudden chill?  
  
"Having fun yet?" Darien's voice, right in her ear, his breath on her face.  
  
Flakes of quicksilver fell around her like snow. He was standing before her, one arm to either side of her leaning against the pillar, trapping her between them.  
  
The quicksilver fell from his eyes last. She knew what she'd see even before she saw it.  
  
"I am," he whispered, grinning.  



	2. trapped

Claire stood, transfixed, staring into a pair of silver eyes inches from her own. The pupils were mere pinpricks. Her own face stared back at her, reflected in their surface.   
  
She knew his face better than her own, but it wasn't Darien looking back at her anymore.   
  
Her hand slowly crept towards her pocket, almost against her will. She'd slipped a syringe and some vials of counteragent in there a few minutes ago, what seemed like hours now. The counteragent, she knew now, would be useless at this point. But the needles, the long, large-bore needles, they might still be put to use.   
  
"What do you want?" she asked Darien, trying to keep his attention on her face, her own eyes. She didn't bother trying to keep the fear and desperation out of her voice.   
  
The face that was no longer her friend's grinned at her. His right hand moved from the pillar behind her, reaching up to caress her cheek.   
  
"I want a lot of things, 'Keep'." His fingers ran gently through her hair. She kept expecting him to grab hold of her hair and pull, but his touch remained gentle, the threat implied rather than overt.   
  
Her fingers touched the plastic cover of a needle. She carefully worked it into her hand, applied pressure to break the seal on the cap. It was so hard to uncover the sharp metal with only one hand!   
  
Manipulation. She could take control of the situation, like she had so many times before, divert his attention, control him, even in Quicksilver Madness. A very dangerous game.   
  
Claire forced herself to smile. "I remember what you wanted last time," she said, shifting her weight towards him. If violence was the alternative....it wasn't much of a choice.   
  
There. She could feel the plastic give. She shifted the needle around in her hand, pushed against the hub with her thumb to work it loose from the cap.   
  
The silver eyes gave nothing away, but the face around them was easy to read. No inhibitions, no polite social constraints.   
  
"True," he said, his hand sliding down the ends of her hair and onto her blouse. "But then, last time, you weren't afraid of me. Do you remember that?" His hand pressed against her chest, just as she'd placed it, up on that catwalk. "This time, I think it's good old-fashioned fear making your heart race, Keep...."   
  
The needle was free. She held the sharp metal so that it protruded between her index and middle fingers and brought her hand free, fast as she could, in a solid punch to the face.   
  
He reacted to the movement, bringing his other arm up. His face was spared, but she left a long, deep scratch on his forearm.   
  
Not giving him time to react, she ducked away where his arm no longer fenced her in. She ran, fast and hard, not daring to look back.   
  
She still saw no hint of an exit, but the cement columns had to come to an end somewhere. If luck was with her, she'd hit a wall near an exit. If not, well, she wouldn't worry about that now.   
  
She couldn't hear his pursuit, only her own ragged breath. Her own feet hitting the floor.   
  
She could see a wall ahead. There was a mark where a sign had once pointed the way to the exit. She couldn't see to either side, the pillars blocked her view. She headed straight towards the wall at full speed. She would have to veer to one side or the other soon, but she couldn't afford to guess wrong.   
  
Just as she was about to collide with green-painted cement, a door came into view to the right. She swerved towards it. A glass window revealed stairs behind the door, stairs leading up. Up and out.   
  
She slammed into it, grappled with the handle. The latch caught. The door started to open.   
  
And stopped.   
  
For a moment, she expected to see quicksilver falling away from him, prepared to fight him to get it open. Then she spotted the chain, visible through the few inches the door had opened. A heavy chain, padlocked closed. Running from the handle on the other side to the railing of the stairway.   
  
A laugh, from behind her. Cold and pitiless. Pleased with himself.   
  
That was why he hadn't caught her as she ran. He'd known he didn't need to.   
  
She pressed her back against the wall, scanning the garage around her. Nothing but bare cement, with fluorescent lights too high above to reach.   
  
He appeared from among the pillars. He hadn't bothered to quicksilver.   
  
He came right up to her. There was something in his posture that let her know, in no uncertain way, that he was much closer to violence now. She couldn't pin it down, but it was there nonetheless.   
  
His hand caught her wrist as she tried to bring the fist with the needle around again. Caught it and dug in hard, forcing the tendons. The needle fell to the concrete with a tink that echoed through the deserted parking garage.   
  
His other hand reached into her lab coat. He pulled out the syringe. He held it between their faces, gazing at it speculatively.   
  
"It's a pity I don't have any Beta-C," he told her. There was a needle already fitted to the syringe, ready for use, its cap still in place. He ran the smooth plastic along her cheek. "But, you know....maybe we don't need Beta-C."   
  
He released her wrist. She tried to move to one side, and he moved faster, getting ahead of her. She dodged back, but he was faster, blocking her again.   
  
The threat of violence was still implied in every move.   
  
She held still, watching him, and he affected nonchalance, as if the little dance had never happened.   
  
He pulled back the plunger of the syringe, pulled until it slid out of the barrel. He held the open end upwards.   
  
She thought at first there was something in his other hand. He brought it up, cupped as if filled with water, but his hand was empty. Then, as she watched, quicksilver began to well up from the pores of his palm, forming a little silver pool.   
  
He tilted his hand, and the raw quicksilver flowed down into the barrel, into the syringe.   
  
He cocked an eyebrow. "What do you think, Keep? How much will it take?" The level of quicksilver continued to rise. When it neared the top, he slid the plunger back in. A little quicksilver spilled out from the needle, falling to the floor. It surely made little black craters in the floor, but neither of them could take their eyes from the syringe long enough to see.   
  
The quicksilver, contained inside the syringe, kept its silvery appearance, its liquid form.   
  
His forearm, the one she'd scratched, came up to press against her chest, pinning her to the wall.   
  
She could fight. And lose. Sane, she could take Darien. She had the training, the practice. And the fear to drive it. But this Darien was nothing like the man she knew. He wasn't even like the red-eyed version she'd tackled before, usually with Bobby's help.   
  
This Darien would hurt her, wouldn't hesitate to do permanent damage. Might even kill her. He was through playing games. No more chase, no more hide and seek. He'd lost interest in that.   
  
If she fought, she might die here, or be crippled and left who knows how long.   
  
The alternative....   
  
Madness. Mania. A loss of control so profound she had no idea what she herself might be capable of. That much quicksilver might even push *her* into stage five.   
  
But surely it would wear off eventually. She had no gland pumping a fresh supply into her system. Her position when that happened couldn't possibly be worse than it was now.   
  
Could she keep some control, she wondered? Keep herself from doing anything too terrible? She was sure Darien wouldn't kill until he hit stage five.   
  
Stage five. Where he was now. With, not murder, but cold death, in his eyes.   
  
He brought the needle up to her throat.   
  
She could fight. Or she could hold still and let it happen.   
  
She told herself she hadn't actually made her decision. That she could still fight. That she was waiting for her moment.   
  
She kept telling herself that right up until the needle slid into her jugular. Then she knew it was too late. The choice wasn't hers any more.   
  
She closed her eyes and waited. The cold rush of madness. In a way, it was a relief.   
  
When her eyes opened again, they were flushed a deep crimson. 


	3. impulses

As he saw the unbroken red of Claire's eyes, Darien grinned.  
  
One of his insufferable expressions, as if he controlled the world and loved watching it dance at his whim.  
  
Claire snarled. Her hand flashed up to his throat. She clenched her fingers until the knuckles went white.  
  
"You think you've got this all planned, don't you?" She lifted up with a madwoman's strength, swinging him around until it was she pinning him against the wall.  
  
His grin stayed put, even as his face began to flush from the restricted blood supply. "You want it rough? Huh? I can handle that....bring it on!" His voice, though barely a whisper, was confident and in control.  
  
That grin was infuriating Claire. Her hands busy with his throat, her lip curled and she leaned forward to bite it off his face. His lips evaded her snapping teeth, opening wide to envelop her mouth in a kiss, and her erratic emotions were spun in an entirely different direction. She couldn't see the grin any more, after all.....and his lips were warm and soft, his body lean and firm and so close to hers.  
  
Her hand loosened and slid around to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Her other hand slid beneath his shirt and across his chest.  
  
Stage four was erratic, unpredictable, easily distracted or redirected. She knew that. She'd used that. Taken advantage of it. But she'd never understood it before. Never understood how powerful the impulses could be, or how suddenly and completely they could turn.  
  
She wanted. She needed. She took.  
  
She wanted his flesh. She pulled at his shirt, stretching it, almost tearing it before Darien calmly slid it up over his head.  
  
He began working at the buttons of her blouse. Yes, good idea. She wanted his hands on her. He was too slow. She pulled until threads tore.  
  
She could feel the grin under her mouth. Smug. Self-satisfied. It reminded her she was angry with him. She dug her fingernails into his back. She wanted to hear him gasp, to cry out, to hurt.  
  
Stage five was beyond pain. He pulled her shirt downward, the sleeves trapping her arms, and did something to tie it behind her. "Oh, yeah, I can do rough...."  
  
The restraint frustrated her, angered her. She wanted to feel him, to hurt or to enjoy. But she was also free to feel the excitement of it. The danger. It turned her on.  
  
She struggled to free her arms. It wasn't a serious restraint and she could feel it give. But the fight was a part of the game now. She couldn't take him, before, when she was sane, but now? Now, with her own mad strength, she could fight him. Her foot swept behind his, to the back of his knees, and he tumbled to the floor, but he was still holding her and she couldn't use her arms to catch her own balance as he pulled her down on top of him.  
  
This was good. This was fun. She straddled him, pushing him against the hard cement floor, freeing her arms and pressing down on his shoulders. His head lifted, and she brought her mouth down to his. Warm, sweet, tingling lips.....  
  
She pulled away, laughing at the way his mouth followed hers as far up as it could. Maybe her control was only an illusion, maybe he could topple her any time he chose and was allowing her to force him down, to keep her interested. She didn't care. She only knew it felt good.  
  
She pulled his wrists up above his head, held them down with one hand as her other felt behind her for a torn piece of clothing. Nothing was within reach.  
  
She allowed his hands to wander back to her skin, trying to feel her breasts but meeting the satin of her bra instead. Frustrating to both of them. He worked the clasp loose, pulled it along her arms, the elastic and cloth holding them a foot apart. She held them up over both their heads, straightened out all the way, so that by the time it reached her hands and was free, his arms were also stretched out almost to their full length.  
  
Seizing the opportunity, she pulled his wrists together and tied them. It would have been painfully tight, but there was no pain for Darien at this point. Only sensation.  
  
He tried to pull away, to sit up, but for the moment, her angle and leverage were better. After a couple of teasing attempts, he stopped trying and waited to see what she'd do next.  
  
The handle to the fire door was so conveniently close. She snaked cloth through it and tied tightly.  
  
Darien was sitting up partway now, his back against the door. It struck her as an awkward, vulnerable position. Her hands ran down the inside of his wrists, his elbows, across the soft flesh of the inside of his upper arms....yes, very vulnerable.  
  
They continued across his ribs, down, down, until they met that frustrating cloth. It was in her way. She shoved at it roughly before remembering there was an easier way. First the belt, then the button, then the zipper. That gave enough slack.  
  
She tickled and teased around his belly button with her lips and tongue while her fingers found a solid grip at his waistline and began pulling down.  
  
A sudden sound distracted her. It took her a moment to realize it was an electronic chirping. Coming from his pants pocket.  
  
She worked the cell phone loose, pressing it against his skin as she did so.  
  
"Is someone happy to see me?" she joked as it chirped again.  
  
Crossed impulses. Curiosity to see who it was, and a desire to hurl it across the room and smash it so they wouldn't be interrupted again.  
  
She flipped open the display. Caller ID. "Ooh, Darien....it's Bobby. Can Bobby come and play too?"  
  
Bits of frozen cloth and elastic fell to the floor, and Darien shook his hands to shed them of their flakes. "Sure," he said, the grin firmly back in place. "Why not?"  
  
"Ooh, shh, shh, let me!" Claire was grinning too as she hit the pick-up button.  
  
She whispered, putting a little tremor of fear into her voice. "Hello? Hello, is someone there?"  
  
"Claire???" Hobbes' voice was staticy with layers of parking garage surrounding them. "Claire, are you with Darien?" The fear in his voice told her that he knew. Knew about his partner, anyway....  
  
"Bobby, thank god! I'm so scared, Bobby....."  
  
"Has he hurt you?" That protective side. So predictable.  
  
"I'm hiding....please, help me....." she whispered, her lips brushing the mouthpiece. She winked broadly at Darien. "I think he's getting closer...."  
  
"Where are you, Claire?"  
  
Darien had eased the door open as far as the chain would allow. "A parking garage....I think...." He let the door swing shut, closing with an echoing slam. Claire gasped theatrically. "Hurry, Bobby!"  
  
Darien called her name, quietly, just loud enough for the cell phone to pick it up. "Claire...."  
  
She punched the button, cutting Hobbes off, and dissolved into giggles.  
  
Claire drew her arm back to hurl the phone across the room, but Darien caught her wrist and took the phone away gently. "He can't trace it if it's smashed. I mean, c'mon, Robert's good, but he does need *something* to go on."  
  
He set the phone down, safely out of the way, with one hand, while the other one, holding her wrist, guided her empty hand back down to the muscles of his abdomen.  
  
"Now, where were we?" 


	4. rescue?

Bobby Hobbes swung the dish side to side, locating the strongest  
signal. This was it. The cell phone was definitely in the parking  
garage before him. A sign announced the garage was closed for  
repairs, but there were lights on inside.

Orange cones blocked off the entrance, but one was out of line and  
another knocked on its side, as if someone had driven over them already. He  
glanced around to make sure he didn't attract too much unwanted  
attention, and turned the Agency sedan into the dark opening, wishing  
he had Golda. His van was better armored and more reliable than this  
clunker, with a higher seat to view more ground while searching.

He tried the Agency radio, but the signals were still dead. The  
explosion had taken out their communications, and things were still  
chaotic back at the Harding building...he doubted he'd be able to  
raise any backup.

He donned the thermal goggles and scanned the interior, creeping  
forward slowly. There were too damn many pillars and turns, too many  
stairwells and ramps. No way to secure an area; Fawkes could get  
behind him a dozen different ways.

He paused as the ramp he was on led to a fork; from here, he could go  
up or down.

He thought about Fawkes, about the state he was in. He'd brought  
Claire here, he wasn't going to just kill her. He wouldn't want her  
to escape, to be able to see a way out. He'd want...privacy.

Shuddering a little, Hobbes turned the van downwards.

On the next level, he noticed something leaning against the door of  
the stairwell. He pulled closer. They were signs, arrows that would

normally mark the way in and out. Fawkes must have set this up

ahead of time. Or else someone else had. Hobbes ran through the list

of potential collaborators, of potential enemies setting a trap, until he  
got bored. There were just too many possibilities. And face it, Fawkes  
could have pulled this off alone, if he'd gone stage 5 nutso at the  
start of the weekend...

A small sign, just a plain arrow, lay face-up on the floor, pointing  
towards the stairwell. It could be accidental, or it could be leading  
him into a trap. Either way, Hobbes didn't see much choice but to  
check it out. He pulled the sedan close to the stairwell entrance and  
drew his gun, eyes moving constantly, on guard for attack,  
quicksilvered or visible.

That was what bothered him the most, was not *knowing* when or how it  
had happened. Something bad must have gone down, and he wasn't there  
to protect his partner.

Hobbes eased the door open, lifted one of the smaller dismantled signs  
and placed it quietly against the door frame. When he'd eased  
through, he gently closed the door against the little metal rectangle,  
so that it held the door slightly open and off the latch.

He began creeping down the stairs, one at a time, gun at the ready.  
Hoping to God he wouldn't have to use it. When he got to the bottom,  
he could see a chain looped around the metal bar of the fire door,  
running from there to the railing of the stairs. The door couldn't be  
opened. His heart sank. The chained door told him that he was in the  
right place. That things really were as bad as he'd feared.

Hobbes looked from the railing to the metal bar. The chain was  
secured with a heavy-duty padlock, the railing looked thick and  
strong. Attacking the weakest point, he aimed a well-placed kick at  
the hinge of the bar.

"Crap!" he hissed as his foot took the impact of the blow. Something  
rattled, but the bar held in place. He muttered quietly to himself as  
he took aim again. "Pull a freakin' stunt like this, drag my ass down  
here, you're more trouble than you're worth sometimes, Fawkes..." He  
didn't mean it, but it let off steam.

Gritting his teeth, he kicked again, harder. This time it connected  
just right, and the bar gave way, knocked out of its hinge. He  
carefully slid the loop of chain off the broken end.

He pushed in the other end of the bar to release the latch and eased  
the door open. He'd made a lot less noise than he would've shooting  
the padlock, but there was still a good chance he'd been heard.

He crouched low and peeped through the small opening, gun at the ready  
but not held out before him where it could be kicked away. The  
parking garage was darker here, and he could see a couple of the  
places where the signs had been removed. Bare electrical cords were  
strung along the ceiling in a few places. The garage was supposed to  
be closed for some repairs, maybe the workers had strung them for  
their equipment.

There was no sign of Claire or Fawkes. At least, not until he looked  
down, right in front of him. Caught under the edge of the door was a  
little piece of cloth. He fished it out and lifted the goggles to  
examine it, still glancing through them regularly. The cloth hadn't  
been torn. It had that peculiar edge he'd become familiar with in the  
last couple years, that happened when cloth was frozen and shattered.  
Frozen with quicksilver. And he didn't think Fawkes was into lace,  
so it must be Claire's.

There were more pieces outside the door. Bobby got a whole lot more  
worried. He knew what Fawkes had wanted with the Keeper the last time  
they'd been together while Fawkes was nutso, but then Claire hadn't  
been putting up a fight, being nutso herself. How would Fawkes react  
if she did fight back? He couldn't even think about what if she chose  
not to fight; one of the famous Bobby Hobbes mental blocks.

Putting the goggles back on fully, he gripped his gun more tightly and  
burst through the door, charging straight out until his shoulder hit  
the first pillar, not lingering near the door long enough for any  
ambush hiding around the corner of the stairwell to be able to get  
ahold of him.

Cold concrete to his back, he didn't see any sign of Fawkes. Or  
Claire. What he did see was the cell phone, on the ground near the  
edge of the stairwell. More definitive proof he couldn't ask for.  
They were here, or at least they had been here, before the call was  
cut off.

The space down here was too big, the entrances and exits too unsecure  
to make a slow search practical. Once he'd made certain no one was  
lurking near the corner where the garage wall met the wall of the  
stairwell, he dashed across the open space between them, scooping up  
the cell phone on the way, and waited a moment to make sure no one was  
coming around the corner at him. Then he called out quietly.

"Claire? Claire, can you hear me?"

Silence.

"Fawkes? You in here, partner?"

He waited a long minute, barely breathing, straining to hear. A  
sound, faint, over to his left. A sort of metallic bang. Could be  
pipes, a door, could be a freakin' steamroller for all he could tell.  
He eased that direction, straining his ears and eyes. He called out  
again, just before crossing a gap between two rows of pillars, so that  
he was away from the spot he'd given away as fast as possible.

"C'mon, guys, I'm not in the mood!"

"But I am..." came the all-too-familiar voice his partner used when  
he was deep in the madness. The sound echoed within the concrete  
cave, making it difficult to pin down where Fawkes was.

Bobby froze, looking around carefully. There, at the very edge of the  
screen on the infrared goggles, was a flicker of movement.

"Fawkes? Are you okay, partner?" he asked, moving in the direction  
he'd seen the movement, slipping from cover to cover, exposed as  
briefly as possible and at unpredictable intervals.

"Oh, I'm great, Robert." He rolled the 'r' a little, reminiscent of  
his Tony the Tiger joke the first time he'd hit stage 5.

Hobbes frowned. He was getting a feel for the echoes in here, and it  
sounded more like Fawkes was behind him now. He caught another sound,  
a scraping, coming from the direction he'd seen the flash of movement.  
It was faint; maybe it had only carried as far as his ears, and not  
as far as Fawkes'.

"And what about Claire," he asked, "is the Keeper okay?" As soon as  
the last word left his lips, he began working his way ahead, silently.  
If Fawkes was behind him, then the sounds up ahead might be Claire.  
He had to somehow get to her before Fawkes did, and get her back to  
the stairwell without being cut off from it.

A faint skittering sound, off to his right, like a small stone  
accidentally knocked away by a shoe. Hobbes hesitated. Which of them  
was it?

"Claire's just fine, partner." There was a nasty laugh in Fawkes'  
voice. "We were just having a little fun. Would you care to join us?"

Hobbes kept silent, once again easing forward. He could see the outer  
wall of the garage ahead. When he reached the last row of pillars  
before it, he eased around slowly.

Claire was there, her back pressed against the third pillar down. He  
breathed a sigh of relief. Her clothes and hair were in disarray,  
smudged with dirt and grease, and cold sweat shone on her face. Her  
eyes were squeezed closed, he mouth partway open, as though she were  
listening with all her might.

"Claire!" he whispered, trying to be quiet enough that Fawkes wouldn't  
hear him.

Her body jerked, she gave a little scream, and she disappeared around  
the corner of the structural pillar, clearly frightened.

"Claire, it's me! It's Bobby Hobbes."

The corner of her face peeped around the pillar. He looked through  
the thermal goggles, well aware that if Fawkes were setting a trap,  
he'd just arrived at the bait. His head swiveling around to try to  
catch some sign of Fawkes, he moved from his pillar to the next.

"Bobby?" she whispered uncertainly. She leaned around the pillar a  
little more.

"C'mon, Keep, I'm getting you out of here." He held out his hand to  
her. As she came around her pillar, he realized she was leaning  
heavily against it, most of the weight off of her left ankle.

She closed the gap between them with a quick limping stride and took  
his hand to support her the rest of the way. She threw her arms  
around him, her shoulders shaking. It felt like she was sobbing,  
silently.

"Bobby, thank God!"

Hobbes couldn't help a small rush of pleasure at being held in  
Claire's arms, whatever the circumstances. She draped her arm around  
his shoulders and leaned against him, her face turned away to scan  
their surroundings.

"He's close. I could hear him." He could feel her trembling. She  
had her eyes closed again, her mouth slightly open, listening hard.  
"I *hate* not being able to see him coming at me," she whispered.

"Has he hurt you?" Hobbes asked, torn between watching out for attack,  
and discretely checking her over for any other injuries.

Suddenly the display on his goggles flashed bright white. He flinched  
away from it, squinting. As the circuits adjusted from low levels to  
high, he realized some sort of bright lights, in a frequency the  
goggles could pick up, must have been turned on. He loosened the  
strap and slid them upwards a bit, looking around the room.

In normal light it looked just the same. Then he spotted it. A small  
lighting fixture, glowing with a faint purple light. Like black  
lights. He remembered what the Keeper had said once about Darien  
seeing in higher spectrums of light while quicksilvered.

"Aw, crap." He urged the Keeper forward faster. He could see there  
were dozens of these lights, strung up in the ceiling on those  
unshielded electrical cables he'd noted earlier.

A low thunk, like a high-powered electrical switch being thrown, and  
the room was plunged into darkness.

He reached up to pull the goggles back down, but his hand met only  
empty air as the goggles were pulled back off of his head by unseen  
hands. Claire's weight was suddenly gone, and he turned desperately,  
one arm outstretched. "Claire?"

A brief, high-pitched exclamation, off to his left, away from the  
exit. He feared the worst for a moment, and then heard something that  
told him he really didn't know what the worst was.

"Ooh, Bobby, I like your toys! I could have a lot of fun with these."

It wasn't Darien's voice taunting him now, it was the Keeper's. The  
Keeper's, as it had been in her lab when she was infected with the  
quicksilver bacteria. When she'd been affected by the Beta-C.

"Oh, that was good! Bravo!" From his other side and ahead, between  
Hobbes and the exit, came the sound of the voice that used to belong  
to his partner, but was now inhabited by someone else, someone far  
more dangerous.

It was pitch black. Hobbes was blind, and there were two lunatics who  
could see, boxing him in. Hobbes slipped on the safety and holstered  
his gun, knowing they could take it away from him far more easily in  
his hand than in his holster.

"You wanna play games? Okay, mister quicksilver madness, I'm ready  
for you."

Hobbes only wished he could believe that.


	5. hide and seek

Hobbes touched the nearest pillar to get his bearings, then broke into  
a run towards where he knew the closest wall should be. Every step,  
he expected to feel a foot tripping him, arms grabbing hold of him,  
but instead he heard only laughter. They weren't pursuing him. Not yet.

He tried to form a picture in his mind of where he was, how far it  
would be to the wall, and how to get from there to the exit. He ran  
with one arm outstretched enough to touch each support pillar as he  
passed, the other held before him to feel for the wall ahead.

His wrist smacked into the next pillar instead of just his fingers,  
numbing his hand for a second. He'd miscalculated the angle. He  
swore, shook his hand, felt tingling but no sign of anything broken.  
He corrected course without breaking stride.

Slowing a little as he got closer to where the wall should be, he  
still hit it hard, grunting a little, spinning with his momentum as  
fast as he could to get the wall behind his back, cutting in half the  
number of directions they could approach from.

Try to get them talking, he asked himself, or keep the place quiet so  
he could hear footsteps?

A noise, off to his left, like someone's foot had hit a pebble.  
Claire had been on that side when the lights went out. Another sound,  
far off to his right, near where he thought the exit was. Hobbes  
strained to hear. To quiet his own breathing and the roar of his own  
pulse. Combat situation. Keep it together. The world sharpened into  
that odd clarity Hobbes only felt when the danger was greatest, his  
need for sanity strongest.

The small sounds continued, from three different directions in a  
little too quick succession. He realized that they must be decoys,  
Fawkes must be throwing something to make sounds away from where he  
really was. Hobbes listened not just to the sounds, but to which  
direction they were moving in. Another one, off to his right, moving  
away...again, in front of him, starting far away and getting  
farther... Fawkes was off to the right and ahead of him, still a  
ways away, moving slowly closer.

Straining his eyes, Hobbes could just make out a faint purple glow.  
Was it real, or was he just seeing what he wanted to see? He slid  
along the wall, and the light was obscured by a straight dark line. A  
support pillar. As his eyes adjusted further, Hobbes could make out a  
couple more areas that were faintly purple. Not enough to see by, not  
with ordinary eyes, but no doubt flooding the room with plenty of  
illumination in those higher spectrums.

"What's the matter, Bobby?" the Keeper asked in that weird sing-songy  
voice. "Don't you want to play?" She was still off to his left, but  
closer now. Another stone's throw told him Fawkes was getting closer,  
too.

What could he use as a weapon? His gun was useless in this dark, and  
he didn't want to kill either of them. Bobby unbuckled his belt. He  
could hear giggles. Slipping his belt out of its loops, he began to  
swing it, fast, fanning his improvised weapon in a shifting figure  
eight that would hopefully catch anyone trying to attack him. It  
could be taken away almost as easily as a gun, but at least it would  
give him a second or two warning while they got past it.

Eyes wide, Hobbes could just barely make out the buckle as a lighter  
blur, not constantly but it was still encouraging. The faint purple  
light outlined the side of a pillar again as he slid further towards  
the exit. And then the outline wasn't straight anymore. There was  
something moving, a figure. He breathed a sigh of relief as he  
realized it was too short to be his erstwhile partner. Claire. A  
Claire who wasn't herself, but any threat from her paled in comparison  
to Fawkes.

"Now that's a promising start, Bobby," she said, giggling again. "Can  
I take off the next piece?"

"Stay out of this, Claire!" Hobbes didn't hear any more sounds from  
the other side of the room. Either Fawkes had caught on that Bobby  
wasn't fooled by the diversions, or he'd run out of pebbles to toss.  
Or he was too busy watching...

"Oh, but I don't want to stay out of it." She giggled again, and  
moved in closer. Hobbes was trying to keep track of her, to gauge her  
mood, but even more on the alert for Fawkes to take advantage of her  
distracting him.

Hobbes felt the steady swing of the belt suddenly stop as it connected  
to something. He knew the leather strap would wrap around the target  
fast, the metal buckle hitting hard, but when your opponent is beyond  
pain, he wasn't sure how much effect that would have. The belt gave a  
sudden jerk and Hobbes hung on, deducing that Claire had caught the  
belt mid-air and grabbed hold of it even as it grabbed hold of her.  
He could feel her other hand pressing against his chest, then moving  
downward to his stomach.

Her fingers slid under the waistband of his slacks, so much looser  
without the belt cinching them. "I don't want to stay out of it at  
all..." she murmured, tugging on the belt he still held, pulling his  
hand toward her hip.

He tried to push her away, and she laughed, enjoying the tussle.  
Hobbes could feel himself blushing as his hand connected with her  
breast. The thin cloth was damp and rumpled, the flesh beneath soft  
and so very warm.

"Ooh, Bobby!" she squealed, her fingers brushing his arm as she tried  
to grab his hand and bring it back to touch her again. "You should  
see the expression on your face!"

Bobby could almost feel something grate as his mind changed gears.  
Training and survival instincts combined to tell him what he should  
do, what he *had* to do. Volatile, fickle, she could be an enemy, or...

"Aw, crap..." he muttered under his breath. Hopefully she'd forgive  
him. A huge chunk of his personality protesting all the while, Hobbes  
relaxed his posture, let his free arm slide around her shoulder,  
pulled her towards him.

"I wish I could see you, Claire." Voice lower, huskier. His hand  
slid down her back, cupped her backside and gave a little squeeze.  
"You're wearing those pants, aren't you, the ones you look so hot in?"

She pressed against him, pulling the belt out of his hand and letting  
it fall to the floor. "I don't have to be, Bobby," she murmured,  
nibbling his ear, her other hand stroking his chest.

God, he wanted this. He wanted her. But not like this. His insides  
squirmed, in a not-entirely-uncomfortable way.

"Best offer I've heard all day," he whispered, putting his CTS skills  
to work. "Wanna go back to my place?"

"Why go anywhere?" she asked, pushing him back against the wall. "The  
floor here's quite comfy."

He would not, could not think about that last remark, not now.

"Well, honey, the floor is okay for a quickie..." He nibbled her  
neck, one hand giving her breast a gentle squeeze, the other pressing  
her ass towards him. God, he could not do this, he could not... "But  
for what I have in mind, I think it'd get way too uncomfortable."

"Oooh, Bobby, I like the sound of that!" She latched onto his arm and  
began dragging him towards the stairwell he'd come down. Her body  
still pressed against him, her hip bumping into his own with every step.

Hobbes pretended to stumble. "I still want to see you, Claire," he  
said, making an artfully playful grab for the thermals, "not to  
mention see where I'm going." Her weight against him shifted as she  
ducked her head away, and his fingertips brushed the metal of the  
visor too lightly to grab hold.

"Naughty boy, it's still my turn!" She grabbed at his wrist, pulling  
further away. He laughed and leaned his face in to kiss her, to show  
her it was all a game, and to close the distance. He reached up  
stealthily with his other hand to make another try for the thermals.

Suddenly he felt her body jerk, heard her cry out in pain. Her weight  
sank downward, she slumped forward, and the thermals clattered to the  
floor. He wanted to help her, but dammit, he couldn't if he couldn't  
see! He reluctantly but swiftly lowered her to the floor and  
scrambled to find the thermal goggles.

Claire was moaning, but Hobbes thought he heard another sound, all too  
close. His fingers brushed metal, closed around the frame, pulled  
them on. He expected Fawkes to be right on top of him. Instead, he  
could see the glowing figure still several yards away, strolling  
towards them.

"Well done, Robert! I didn't think you had it in you." Fawkes  
gestured down towards Claire, but Hobbes didn't dare look her way.

The goggles hid the confusion in his eyes. If Fawkes hadn't attacked  
them, then what...

"...bobby?..." Claire's voice was weak, filled with pain and  
confusion...but it was Claire's voice. Her real voice.

Fawkes chuckled, that low, dangerous mirth unique to the madness. "So  
it does wear off eventually." Hobbes crouched in a combat position,  
Fawkes slowly circling them, still strolling casually.

"No gland," Claire mumbled. "Body...breaks down...quicksilver..."

"Ah, but I still have this lovely little lady pumping fresh juice into  
me way too fast for that." He gestured at his head, where the  
quicksilver gland was implanted. "Lucky me."

Any other time, Darien would have said that with bitter irony. In  
stage 5, he meant it.

"Claire, you okay?" Hobbes asked, still not daring to look her way.

"Aside from a…massive headache?" He could hear her moving as she  
stood up, and gestured her towards the wall so he could protect her  
better, before realizing she wouldn't be able to see it.

"Looks like you got her, Robert." Fawkes's lazy circling brought him  
back between his friends and the exit. "Now all you've got to do is  
get past me."


End file.
